About 21 million Russians, or 15 percent of the population, lived below the poverty line in the first half of this year, surviving on monthly incomes of less than 5,187 rubles ($180), data released on Tuesday showed.
This is less than the 24.5 million people below the poverty lines in the first quarter of 2009, but more than the 18.5 million people in the same position last year, the State Statistics Service said.
Food accounts for around 40 percent of the average minimum subsistence sum, non-food goods 16 percent and services most of the rest.
Pensioners account for a large proportion of the country's poor, receiving an average monthly income of just 5,576 rubles ($193) compared with an average per person income of 16,933 rubles
($588).
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